


Something to Share with the Rest of the Coney-Smacking-Class?

by RainofLittleFishes



Series: The Era of Benevolent Rationality [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (It’s not a Troll Oedipus complex – you just look like my lusus.), AU, Alternate Universe, Budding romance or something, Cultural Differences, M/M, Meanwhile out in the colonies...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 10:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3806401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whoever is telling the story, lowblood, highblood, or the peoples of Alternia’s colonized worlds, the moral is the same: They are not like us, and it is foolish to trust them. </p><p>Jhaake Hrrley is a weird troll, but all trolls are weird so that doesn't really mean anything.</p><p>Dirk of Clan Strider is a Giant Vorpal Hopbeast ("I'm a Coney, Hrrley, is that so hard?"). </p><p>Neither of them is particularly traditional, but with such a vast cultural gap, they're going to have to learn to words.</p><p>A stand alone in The Benevolent Rationality series - you do not need to know the verse, just that it is very AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Share with the Rest of the Coney-Smacking-Class?

_Once there was a highblood and a lowblood. And the lowblood had a moirail and a lusus but no kismesis or matesprit._

_The highblood was also without concupiscent quadrants and so they proposed that the lowblood be of service._

_The lowblood demurred and said that the drones were still sweeps out._

_And so the highblood returned to their hive empty-handed._

_In time, the lowblood lost their moirail, and their lusus, and their hive, and was utterly without protection beyond that of their own._

_“You are alone,” said the highblood, “let us be alone together.”_

_And the lowblood, still grieving the night’s losses and fearing the sun, agreed._

_They traveled quickly until they reached to the highblood's hive, just as the sun threatened._

_“I have one condition,” said the highblood, “my hive is your own, but in the basement are many doors, and you must never open them.”_

_And so the lowblood agreed._

_It came to pass that the two became accustomed to one another. The highblood brought the lowblood their kills, beasts of great ferocity and cunning and rarity. And the highblood dared to touch the lowblood and the lowblood did not push them away._

_And so for a while the two trolls were a comfort to one another._

_One night the highblood returned from their hunt sorely wounded, and the lowblood was greatly distressed. The lowblood had seen the highblood enter the basement and return in better health. And so the lowblood broke their promise._

_In the basement there were many doors and behind each, a body. It was there that the lowblood knew that of their lusus, and their moirail, among so many others._

_When the lowblood returned to the highblood, the highblood was greatly angered, for they could see by the stains on the lowblood’s hands that they had broken their promise._

_And the highblood said, “If you will not love me as I am, then you must loathe me, and be my kismesis.”_

_And the lowblood demurred and said, “How can these hands that have papped your face, rise against you in kismesitude?”_

_And the highblood greatly injured, pulled themselves to their feet and stepped forward._

_And the lowblood also stepped forward._

_And they embraced and placed their hands on one another’s faces._

_And it is here the story diverges._

_When the warmbloods tell the story, the highblood snaps the lowblood’s neck, and eats of their heart, so that they might never be alone._

_When the coldbloods tell the story, the lowblood sets the two aflame, a Pyrrhic victory for a short-lived traitor._

_Whoever is telling the story, lowblood, highblood, or the peoples of Alternia’s colonized worlds, the moral is the same:_

_They are not like us, and it is foolish to trust them._

*

You are The Dirk of Clan Strider, a young warrior of your people in an age unsure if it has need of such arts. You are quite sure that trolls are crazy. You are not sure that this is much different from anyone else. You don’t exclude yourself.

Jhaake Hrrley is the current source of your madness. He’s build like you, two long arm spans of muscle high, with the scars to show that it was honestly won, though he favors guns to your swords. Some might argue that there’s a lot of difference between your light-dun-shaded-to-moon-white pelt and impressive ears and that of a troll’s naked dead gray skin and horns, but you don’t make a practice of listening to fools that can’t be more explicative than that.

Your elder sister, The Draven (for her night-black coat, and isn’t that a stupid thing to be named for), abdicated as leader of Clan Strider, 35 warrens, to a position as Alternian Ambassador. This leaves you in a unique position to know that trolls can resist eating everything that crosses their paths, though not always without a bit of commentary on seasoning. You’ve seasoned a few in return with knuckle sandwiches and they seemed to grow a bit more respectful. That’s the sort of negotiation you understand well enough.

Some People might argue that you got your position through nepotism. They’re welcome to gnaw quaint tourism furniture and ancestral totems ‘til they join ‘em, but your métier is the song of wires and metal and solder. That’s reason enough to live in the town that’s sprung up by the spaceport. Jhaake has just become the other reason.

At first it seemed he sought you out, but now you don’t make yourself so difficult to find. You both like a bit of distance in a real fight, him more than you, but not many People are willing to wrestle you, you with your muscle, and your ideas, and your disregard for their opinions. You still don’t know why he sought you out, but when he calls you a vorpal hopbeast, it’s not said the same way you’ve heard it before: crazy, vermin, good eats. It’s almost admiring, fond, even wistful, as if he’s not quite seeing you alone.

Janie says that even among trolls there’s a vast cultural difference over what is rightful prey and taboo. The difference has less to do with caste then the animals many consider kin. It still raises something high and whiny in the back of your brainstem to know that they don’t warren with their kits and kin properly, but you are not a slave to your instincts. Roxxie’s folks raise their young communally and they’re nuts because they’re nuts, not because they don’t get enough snuggling in.

Janie’s got a good head on her shoulders and if anyone can explain the depth between cultures caused by environment alone, it would be a jilldoe who flies the oceans and walks the land in two different forms.

Trolls have been on Connera for a generation of your people, and while space scut is pretty clear that they’re not just dangerous, they’re usually suicidally committed, it’s also pretty clear that your world escaped the worst of it. The BR Administration now favors negotiation and trade before obliteration or subjugation, and your people are wary but not scared.  

The troika planets of Connera, SweetRime, and Verdanthia have a natural defense against psionic weaponry and the “Benevolent Rationalist” leaders seems uninterested in throwing themselves at it out of spite. This is not how it would have gone had the old seawitch still been at their head.

Still, Jhaake is a mystery.

You’ve just knuckled him across his cheekbone in response to something ridiculous he asserts is absolutely, positively, Coney-smacking true, and he goes over easy, as smooth and sweet as milk from the teat. You’re pressing your advantage, but he isn’t rising to challenge you _at all_. He’s strangely expectant, eyelids lowered, a soothing soft low clicking purr greeting you, not unlike your teeth grinding in contentment, not at all akin to a growl or a snake’s rattle. His throat is quite explicitly open. You don’t know what he wants. You pause.

“Something you want to share with the rest of the Coney-smacking-class?”

The purr stutters a bit and he starts to tuck his head.

“Jhaake, work with me here. If you’re asking something, I’m not saying aye or nay, I don’t know the question.”

“Not really sure if it’s red or pale, Dirrke, but it’s awfully potent.”

Whoa, troll romance. Good thing you’re all caught up on the birds and the bees and the bunnies that sneeze bits, because Trolls think Coney Clan ties are confusing, but Troll romance is just a messy warren of what-even and why-huh.

He’s blushing now.

“Did you just faint in my embrace like the blue jackbuck in “In Which the Alien Menaces Both Horrifying and Strangely Tempting…”  goes all ‘have your _way_ with me, _J’casta_ ’?”

“I suppose I did.”

“Good. I’m awfully rugged you know, well worth a fall among the orchard fruit.”

You settle closer and let your teeth grind back in counterpoint to his purr.

You have a thought.

“Just to be clear on all sides; I’m not your lusus.”

*

He moves out of his shared hive, and what do you know? Trolls can manage to warren just fine. It’s like he’s been trained. (Someday you will find a picture of his lusus and realize that he _has_.)

Your sister visits, home from yet another round of talks for the season of rest before talks resume yet again on the next planet in the troika.

She seems to like Jhaake well enough. You don’t sign in relief, even if her opinion is one of the few you value. She gifts him a short shiving blade, practical and unmarked, tells him not to get lost on the way home. She uses the word for home as set in a person and not for the warren, which is kind of cluttered, but totally not a mess.

She gives you a piece of advice, if you can call it that.

“Just don’t go spilling the bucket, laddy-buck. You’d be all coming out in colors.”

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering: Janie is a Selkie of the Harleyseal variety and Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Roxie is more than a touch Fey.


End file.
